Author: Maverisk

Just an intermission: The Internet is broken.
Stark claim. But, some proof: I conducted a little A/B test with my posts. Yes, there’s many bias and systemic deviation possibilities, but most probably, they effect neutrally.

The test being, which post would get most views; either short texts or long(er) ones, either with many links or with a few or none, either with a long title or a short one, the title being descriptive or terse/lapidary.
The result: High links/text ratio ⇒ low hit count, ceteris paribus, is the only significant find.

But wasn’t Tim Berners-Lee’s original idea that ‘hypertext’, text linked throughout, should be what the Internet would be about ..? Not cat pics, or NSFW stuff, or streaming et al. as the latter-day circuses; WiFi vid of any kind as the primordial necessity of life.
And true knowledge nay intelligence extending linking of far-flung ideas and concepts … declared unwanted, apparently.
[This test may be repeated with e.g., wikipedia; I predict similar results]

No wonder we’ll have to re-invent the ‘Net.
Now, back to serious [??] content with:

[Transparent glass art at the Noord-Brabants Museum some time ago]

Question: Why don’t we have robot suitcase (un)loaders at airports yet ..?

The physical robot tech is there already, for a number of years, including the touchy-feely right-pressurising of the grippers. And it’s not like there’s a need for sensitively treating eggs or so; today’s manual grippers don’t seem to be all that delicate with your luggage as you can see from the humans holding pens waiting areas or your plane seat.
The piece-by-piece visual ID part also has been solved long ago, and today’s improvements in image processing (think: cars) has more, vastly more than required, subtlety. With a huge margin, even, as all luggage has a somewhat-similar format – or wouldn’t be allowed through luggage self-check-in.

Add in the possibilities of automatic weight balancing (the auto-pick-upper can locate the barco tag, and can decide where in the plane any piece would go); lowering imbalance. And in the memory of this; when some moron passenger thinks they’re so Important that they can go on shopping till the gate has closed, the Machine will know somewhat-exactly where the luggage to be unloaded sits. Thus lowering wait times, delays.
The Machine would also know exactly which luggage did or did not go in/out of a plane, thus having an extra check on lost/mis-routed luggage. And when some piece goes lost (elsewhere?) a cursory description could run through the visual-recognition system to spot its last-seen location. Both, increasing travellers’ airport satisfaction rating.

Yes, today’s luggage handlers are cheap. But they act like it, unsurprisingly – very low pay with high work-related-injury risk induced stress –, decreasing non-financial returns of airports (i.e., customer satisfaction). And they care not about speed, anyway. Not in the way that a Suity McSuitcasebot would be able to work considerably faster (thus potentially lowering run-around times!) than a human handler that complains, has a sore back (average airport-deployed employee health increase!), doesn’t care about precision (careless negligence) and possibly maltreats luggage (throwing it around and who cares when something accidentally drops).
I also see qualitative improvements in security; less men handling luggage, more per-piece control.

And qua overall handling: For one, linking up the distribution/collection of luggage with the central storage/handling under the airport, may save layover costs (space/time). For another, why not have a continuous distribution system, with holding facilities much closer to every gate..? Increasing turn-around times even further. Also since the self-checked-in luggage under the airport already is in their individual trays, easing robot visuals/handling later on.

So, probably robots would take some investment to develop and deploy. And some handler staff would have to be retained, for on-site supervision and troubleshooting I guess; no categorical redundancies but some, with retained staff having less hauling, slightly more interesting work left. Like outsize luggage or precious cargo for which the high-speed machines can’t field enough tenderness.
Returns are both non-financial and financial. Add the possibility to let robots haul (a bit) heavier luggage – probably, in the plane’s cargo hold humans may need to schlepp still – but one can allow variation, and charge per kg over some (low) standard weight ..? [Pre-registered otherwise the plane might get too heavy for take-off…]
All improvements require upfront investment — for a serious and lasting return in time.

Edited to add: This may be thrown into the mix. Slightly after It’s five o’clock somewhere so you can figure out where, on your own you smartypants.

Leaving you with:

[This one wouldn’t need help with ‘unloading’ I guess; an old analog pic from … near Racine, WI at some inpromptu(ly found) local air show]

By and large, the world is slowing down a bit [sic] already again towards the Summer lull. Which gives us plenty of time to get rid of old habits. And of misconceptions.
The famous pyramids are one (huh) of them, definitely.
Compare the standard picture you’ve all become accustomed to, to ‘For instance, he wrote that a man who struggles to feed himself “may fairly be said to live by bread alone.” Maslow, however, “was quick to point out that such situations are rare,” the authors explain. Instead, he felt that most people “are partially satisfied in all their basic needs and partially unsatisfied in all their basic needs at the same time.”‘ from this.

Yes. I didn’t say that I referenced those predecessors by a handful of centuries of the picture, like, in Egypt, Central America, and elsewhere, as idealised forms in stone of said picture quite a bit avant la lettre; where did you get that idea ..??

Two more then, with the Why I write this all up in the first place:
‘As Bridgman and his fellow researchers note, the hierarchy concept “captured the prevailing [post-war] ideologies of individualism, nationalism and capitalism in America and justified a growing managerialism in bureaucratic (i.e., layered triangular) formats.”‘ and
‘Fowler finds that many executives use the pyramid as “an excuse to not have to deal with people’s psychological issues,” and to set their more complex needs aside. Says Fowler, “It’s kind of like, ‘Well, we can’t afford to give this to everybody at the bottom of the pyramid, so we’ll just assume they’re not going to be motivated by higher-order reasons.’”

Another ill-effect she links to Maslow’s hierarchy is the belief that: “If I made more money, I would be happier. Or, if I had those security needs taking care of, I would be happier, or more motivated to do my job,” says Fowler. “People get trapped in that,” she argues, “and yet if money was the solution, we wouldn’t see any rich people who suffer. They wouldn’t have divorces or become drug addicts or commit crimes.”
Most damning, perhaps, is the pyramid’s insinuation that there is a finite amount of space at “the top,” and we are all competing against each other to get there. “Really,” says Fowler, “people are ‘self-actualizing’ all over the place.”’
Indeed, when you read the whole darn piece it isn’t difficult at all once you gain elementary school proficiency in reading [oh hey may that take some time still? You an executive?], you’ll see that an idea warped to suit consultants’ needs [infinite recursion then, qua satisfaction], will almost invariably lead to enormities qua externalities.

Now there‘s something to fight against…

Oh and:

[Triangles, anyone? Not here! Porto, obviously]

Just a warning, that the same thing that is still going on, and on, and on, and on, … in information-security/infosec/ITsec/Cyberrrr…!, being the exasperating hype-panting over the latest threats and here’s now finally a single (our, the only) tool / method to solve all your troubles; is now flowing over into ethical/transparent/explainable AI auditing.

Not.
Show me evidence, actual source code [even if of the written-out procedures kind] of how one would go about realising such opinion formulation after obtaining reasonable evidence… That stuff just does not happen, doesn’t exist.

It’s only vapourware! Be alert! [If only because the world needs more lerts!] It’s just foot-in-the-door kind of fake-it-til-you-make-it-at-the-clients-much-expense.

For the rest:

[Was: The ethics content of bankers at the Zuid-As Amsterdam; Is: The algo transparency of fat promises]

A rather philosophical one today …
Is the US society crumbling because … not the 1% or 0,1% taking over the country, not [what’s left of] the working class having no opportunity to work hard [and maybe that not being enough at all to socially climb after (sic) money-class climb], but:
The oh so useful forgiveness for past failure [economically and otherwise] having been abolished, so recovery is no longer possible…
Forgiveness like, going broke and starting afresh with a clean slate [have a look at olde Europe and see what stagnation happens if you prevent people from quick rebounds]. E.g., per credit checks, one simply can’t get rid of the red flag behind one’s name, perpetuated by algo-driven systems that reinforce the red flag over and over again by denying credit.
Forgiveness like also, having served your sentence and then going back to normal life. The sentence was the punishment, right, and after that, one is again innocent until proven guilty ..? Or is one still guilty, cannot be trusted for a long, long time to come, etc. ..? In that case, the punishment is harsh, severe, Life for every misdemeanour.

In both flavours, the struggle to get on one’s feet again is debilitating. On a societal level, unthinkable amounts of initiative and energy are lost. And then some. And the fabric of society crumbles.
QED.

Now then:

As this is Friday, remember a. the weekend’s here, b. that’s a reason to consider freshening up your mind not slacking off.
Two routes:
1. This exploration pointer and/or study this.
2. This one: Re-think preconceived notions of how the world will evolve. An example may be this piece on the future of driving. In contrast to this one, though.

Cheers;

[Thta’s cherry, not vitis vinifera, but also for your comtemplative efforts; Amstelveen (!)]

Following up on Tuesday’s post; a piece on how to do AI right.
No, its not technical. It’s more like a Do and Don’t… In this piece, you’ll read a lot of how AI can be deployed – until you realise that some systems mentioned that are intended to steer (nudge) employees towards ethical behaviour, actually are very, very creepy in themselves, and possibly illegal in a number of places / the majority of where you’d want to be if you’re ethically-inclined.

Oh well. The Law of Conservation of Trouble, right? Only good for a Newtonian world view, by the way.

And one can also study this piece; much better… Or this – that apparently was out (not ~ there) since Nov 2017 ..? And please also add this in the mix.
Not this one, terribly vacuous.

Which is a positive note to end with, plus:

[Trippy pic by accident, location no accident these days; side street in Toronto]

Don’t you ‘amuse gueulle/bouche’ me …! Why change a winning team name, right?

Also, Drucker’s thing on strategy isn’t the only thing. There’s other things, e.g., qua regulations and ‘control’ here.
TL;DR incl my elucidation: Controls stifle, lead to stagnation – and

• Are ineffective, as they almost by definition don’t least resistance enable the ‘safest’ procedures to be followed naturally but coax users away from that hence introduce severe friction against which users will put their energy more than against actual downside risks to achieve the upside potentials. So any control that you deem necessary, will be rendered useless as a first priority.
• Were never intended as a management ‘control’ thing! Management control is about steering and giving out orders [with a huge, huge bandwidth for Commander’s Intent …!!] and it definitely has zero to do with micromanagement and enslavement. The latter, not too strong a word…
• Are the exact opposite of what you need to succeed. Having a hierarchical ‘framework’ of controls, preferably without ‘risk’ in every line, might have once suited vast army control. But your organisation isn’t an army, on the contrary qua success it’s an inverted pyramid! And even armies nowadays have to deal with guerrillas and IEDs etc. in every outpost corner of ‘business’; the ‘one step forward across the entire continent-wide front’ no longer applies, does it? Edited to add: I’m not even making this up; If you dislike change, you’re going to dislike irrelevance even more. [Eric Shinseki, Retired US Army General]

Only the most trivial of (e.g., anti-fraud) controls may need to be in place, but if you need those, you’ve already lost since you demonstrably have lost the primary motivation of your employees to work with the company as they now at best don’t care a thing just pay for presence. You need guide rails not train rail tracks. The outside world, and your inside world, will derail you (all) in an instant.

So please stop the fellow travellers of the GRC world. Get to the real work in that. But then, ‘culture’ can’t be controlled per checklist. Oh my.
Plus: This.

And:

[Use one of these; Twente AFB a long time ago when analog picsslides (this one a scan from _ even…) were the B/A or rather only/A]

In line with various posts (like, this one of this morning, and another one somewhere this week – Thursday; of course I know, it had been scheduled two months ago),
an in-between remark of sorts: The biggest bottleneck in AIland nowadays is the translation of some unknown business need into AI/ML sprint objectives.

See? One can have a lot of data, and randomly figure out the patterns (‘correlations’ of various kinds; note the ”) OR go for the outlier detection. Then what? Is there a business purpose to turn the found patterns (and keep on trucking learning – using the same stats [!] engine) into some system module or so? Is the business case sufficient, and do all involved know enough about each other team mates’ territories to get it together? How much work needs to be done to turn the stats engine part into something efficient, compiled and adaptable through continuous learning? This wrangling with the systems logic at a (?) meta-levels may render the system less effective i.e. business case worthwhile; what’s the minimum and can we achieve that?

Or will the point application remain that, and not even be turned into a fully developed little app ..? [Where has the original ‘applet’ gone ..?]

So, what would happen if after a lab pilot, a full business case were developed ..? I could go on and on about how a demand pull should drive development, not a supply shy little push’let by a breaking-voice nerd… [no offense intended]

Oh well, this:

[A design trick looking for an application; Zuid-As Amsterdam]

Very readable it is, and useful for your information, on the general state of affairs. This here report.
Already – ah! – months old, but still very, very good for a Summertime’s read-up. To be a better guru (link ..?), not follow the (dump) hype.

And it may be incomplete, and somewhat outdated. E.g., add this — in itself, also (very) incomplete as it has zero ref to Canada even when it mentions the old hand US in this… Hey when I checked back the site, halfway through April, it had ‘upcoming events’ till January. Wow.

But it’s better than relying on hearsay like case-by-case ‘news’. If you’re interested, ensure to be at the right conferences also, e.g., this one.

Cheers, with:

[Was it Strassbourg or Colmar? Who cares; Alsace it is.
 I care (at least my pic is undoctored…), as here:

In this Tiny Boat in Colmar, France pic.twitter.com/NnGQ3KT7TW

— Archpng (@archpng) June 28, 2018